It's been a hell of a week!, er WEEKS, MONTHS! VERY OT

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Thu Feb 3 22:52:18 2005

> > as someone very interested in the A4/V2 rocket design and operation
> > (and to a degree the construction) these documents would be just
> > wonderful to read.
>
> Don't get me wrong - I really hope there's a way Joe can make them
> available. I'm interested too.
>
> I just think it would be very risky to publish them without doing
> some research into the necessary disclaimers.

I think this information is already available.

What Joe R. found could be one of two things.

It could be an original draft made by the EEIS (Enemy Equipment
Information Service), eventually being published as a tech manual (a
TME). This is unlikely, as the EEIS was quite secure, and the chances of a
rough draft getting out of the system are really slim. Really, really
slim.

Far more likely, it is someones personal (and probably for its day, very
illegal copy) of the TME. Quite a few people made typewriten copies of
manuals they had access to, so they could have one "outside the
system". Yes, sometimes it meant you could get shot, but they figured they
could get away with it, and they did, for the most part. Remember that in
that age, copy machines basically did not exist as we know them, and lots
of people had pretty good typing skills, so even a pretty thick manual
could be pounded out in no time.

So there is probably a copy of the TME available. I think just about all
have been declassified, or can be with the FOI forms (a buddy does this
with his flying bomb research - often docs at the archives are still
classified simply due to inertia, and a few minutes of paperwork is all it
takes). I don't know what class rocketry would fall under (radios are TME
11s, ordnance are TME 9s, engineering are TME 5s), but with all the V2 use
after the war, certainly bunches of these manual for the rockets were
printed (and probably now destroyed as part of the declassification).

Still, a damn neat find.

William Donzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Thu Feb 03 2005 - 22:52:18 GMT